While they weren’t quite out of it just yet, the underdog Pittsburgh Steelers needed to show some sort of pulse on Monday afternoon.
With the Buffalo Bills already holding a two-score lead, a crucial early second-quarter Pittsburgh possession felt like it might decide the game. The Bills as a team are simply too potent without an apt response. And for a moment, with a Kair Elam penalty on Diontae Johnson serving as the catalyst, it looked like the Steelers would finally land a punch on the Bills.
Johnson ensured that Elam understood this fact when he started trash-talking the young Buffalo cornerback. Note: Johnson had zero catches for zero yards and zero touchdowns at the time of this sequence.
Diontae Johnson is jawin pic.twitter.com/rDj2blbHm3
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 15, 2024
Naturally, Elam made Johnson eat his words almost immediately when he picked off Mason “Geno Smith?” Rudolph two plays later. Even better, Elam appeared to steal away a touchdown from the Pittsburgh playmaker:
Kaiir Elam picks it off in the end zone for Buffalo 🔥
📺: #PITvsBUF on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/rnjmj1Pg4j pic.twitter.com/TKW0kThk6g— NFL (@NFL) January 15, 2024
Let that be a lesson to players like Johnson. You should probably wait until your team actually scores a touchdown before a Super Bowl contender like the Bills gets a chance to respond.
